Friday, December 26, 2014

Comment: Since all human beings are made
in God's holy image, even in death and at their graves- the places of
their earthly temple's burial,[ while their souls are in the next
world], awaiting the General Resurrection, and the Last Judgment, that
their graves are sacred to the Creator.For anyone to deface or to desecrate any human's grave is a terrible sin against God.Such desecration is not the act of any sincere God fearing Christian, but of impious satanic monsters.Rd. Daniel in Oregon

MORE than 70 gravestones in the Russian, Serbian and non-denominational
sections of a Sydney cemetery have been vandalised during a late night
break-in.

The offenders broke into
Rookwood Cemetery on Hawthorne Ave and pushed over or smashed 76
gravestones between 9pm on Tuesday to 6am yesterday.Police initially
reported the damage occurred in the cemetery’s Russian and Ukrainian
areas but cemetery officials revealed no Ukrainian graves were affected.Rookwood General Cemetery Trust CEO Fiona Heslop does not believe the vandalism was racially motivated.

Ms
Heslop said the areas attacked were the Serbian and Russian orthodox as
well as non-denominational sections called Magnolia Grove and the
Remembrance Lawn.“The way I’m looking at it, the path through the cemetery doesn’t seem to focus on one denomination alone,” she said.“It’s not far from the gate, they could have quite easily climbed over the gate.”The vandalism came the day before Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko arrived in Australia for a two-day visit.

Mr
Poroshenko arrived this morning and will join Prime Minister Tony
Abbott at a Melbourne prayer vigil for victims of the downed flight
MH17.Ms Heslop believes a weapon must have been used to damage many of the gravestones.“I don’t think you could understand someone’s headspace who does something like this,” Ms Heslop said.“Some
of the headstones are quite old so if they pushed hard it will fall, it
would be a hell of a lot of a push but it will fall,” she said.

“They
have grabbed crosses on top of the monuments and pulled them off. It
looks to me like they’ve done it with something. The marble has been
cracked too.”The 76 families will be contacted by the cemetery and informed of the damage but staff are also distressed by the incident.“We will contact the families over the next two days,” Ms Heslop said. “It brings up the memories for all the families.“(The staff) deal with death on a daily basis but shouldn’t have to deal with this,” she said.“When you see someone come in and do that to that area, the staff feel a bit helpless.”Officers investigating the incident have called for anyone with information to come forward.

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Machine Translated

READER DANIEL 2017

READER DANIEL 1989

QUOTE

What separates us from the love of friends is envying or being envied, causing or receiving harm, insulting or being insulted, and suspicious thoughts. Would that you had never done or experienced anything of this sort and in this way separated yourself from the love of a friend.

Philokalia Vol. II, #21

QUOTE

'A faithful friend is beyond price' (Ecclus. 6:15), since he regards his friend's misfortunes as his own and suffers with him, sharing his trials until death.

Philokalia Vol. II, #93

OLD RUSSIAN SAYING

"If we have a good priest (or bishop), we give thanks to God. If a bad one, we endure him".